Pad See Ew

By Marc Matsumoto

Hi! I'm Marc, and I'm here to help you cook smarter by teaching basic techniques while giving you confidence and inspiration to have fun in the kitchen! Get email updates and follow us so you don't miss any recipes:

The name Pad See Ew (ผัดซีอิ๊ว) literally translates to “fried soy sauce” and as the name would indicate, the primary seasoning of this rice noodle dish, is soy sauce. The key to getting the rich brown hue on the noodles is to use dark soy sauce. Unlike East Asian soy sauce, Thai dark soy sauce is nearly black in color, with a viscosity comparable to maple syrup and a sweet fragrance reminiscent of molasses.

You can use any protein you want to make Pad See Ew, but be sure to marinate it with some soy sauce and potato starch. The soy sauce seasons the protein while the starch helps hold in its juices, keeping it moist and tender. Because all the ingredients have different cooking times, it can be a bit tough to time everything right. That’s why I like to simplify things by cooking the chicken separately before I cook the noodles.

Aside from the soy sauce, the other key flavor component to this dish is not listed in the ingredients. That’s because it’s the smoky flavor you get from a high temperature wok (I like to call it “burnt wok flavor”). Unfortunately not all of us have a high BTU wok burner in our homes and there’s nothing worse than using a wok over a weak flame, so I’ve adapted this to work in a frying pan. Just be sure to use a frying pan that is big enough for the amount of food you put in it. This works great in a 12-inch pan. Because Pad See Ew goes very quickly, it’s important to have all your ingredients prepared and ready to go into the pan one after the other.

While fresh sen yai (or ho fun) rice noodles work best, they can be hard to find, which is why I’ve written the directions for dried noodles. I used some dried noodles that come in 2-inch-wide square “flakes”. Be sure to rehydrate them completely before using. They take about 2 hours to rehydrate with room temperature water, or about 10 minutes if you use boiling water.

Pad See Ew doesn’t have any chili peppers in the dish, but it’s usually served with chili peppers pickled in vinegar. The chilies and vinegar make for a spicy condiment that not only brings a bit of heat to the noodles, it provides a refreshing tang. You can make this buy slicing up some of your favorite chilies(I used serrano chilies) and then soaking them in vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar) for a few days.

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